Deacon Dan Wright

Blog Update

Because of work and family responsibilities, I needed to take the week away from the blog.  However, I'll be back at it soon.  Look for new content beginning this weekend.  Sorry to keep you waiting.

Praying in the Car and Using Our Ten Fingers as a Rosary

I’ve often wondered how many people pray in the car during their commute.  Even more, I wonder how many use their fingers to pray the Rosary in the absence of beads.

A quick pray-as-you-go has been a feature of my drive for a long time.  Actually, I find that a good heart-to-heart talk with God can fill 15 to 20 miles of driving, sometimes more.  Some of my best moments with God have been while driving to work.

I’ve also been accustomed for some time now to praying the Rosary on my fingers when I don’t actually have beads with me.  However, it can be a little problematic to keep everything focused, especially in heavy morning traffic.  Add to it that I drive a six-speed manual shift and it really gets crazy.  I don’t really recommend praying in such a way that will distract your driving.  There is a better alternative that I believe pleases God just as much, probably more.

Make it a practice to get up just a few minutes early and set aside a block of time that belongs to God each morning.  Often the gift of our time, or the better management of our time, is one of the best things that we can offer during Lent.  Hopefully we learn from what we give up or what we offer to God during this time of year and we are able to carry the practice into the remainder of the year.

Much of what we do in Lent is about renewing our baptismal commitment.  It’s about renewing our dedication to living a stronger Catholic identity as well.  Lent provides the opportunity to get reacquainted with those things about our faith that make it most special—for example, our participation in the Communion of Saints, which includes our special relationship to the Blessed Virgin in her role as Mediatrix in our prayer life. 

However, above everything else, the renewal of our baptismal commitment or promises has to do with getting in touch with the foundation of our faith: it has to do with our rediscovery Jesus Christ as the Lord of our lives.  Thus, in a way that unfolds beautifully in terms of spiritual awareness, the renewal of our baptismal promises is a re-presentation of the conversion of our souls from sin and to God.  Furthermore, it has the greatest meaning for us in the context of our sharing in the Body of Christ—both in the sense of Eucharist and what it means to share in the communal life of the Church.

It may appear that I got a little off the topic of praying in the car and using our ten fingers to pray the Rosary; however, I hope that I was able at least to hook you into reading the entire post.  There’s so much more that I could say about this special time of year when we have the opportunity to rediscover the most important of all things—our faith in God.  The simple fact is that it all begins with prayer.  If you want to renew your faith, your baptismal promises, your catholicity or even your Christianity, begin by saying these or similar words, “Dear God, hear my prayer…”

On the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Last night, as I read Evening Prayer I of the Liturgy of the Hours for the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the short reading from Colossians spoke deeply to me regarding the significance of the occasion, as well as speaking on a personal level.  Certainly we should carry these words with us throughout each of our days:

Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being.  Do it for the Lord rather than for men, since you know full well you will receive an inheritance from him as your reward.  Be slaves of Christ the Lord.  Col. 3:23-24

For me the reading encapsulates what I think of whenever I hear the name of St. Joseph.  St. Joseph is the icon of everyone who works to support a family.  Ever since my conversion I've been told that St. Joseph is a powerful helper for families in need.  Certainly, we would do well to seek his intercession for us.

For anyone who has ever faced a difficult situation at work, or a difficult situation concerning his or her family, St. Joseph is the saint par excellence to whom we look for help.

There's also another side of looking to the patronage of St. Joseph, which the hymn provided in my volume of the Divine Office hinted at:

We venerate your justice, the gospels praise your name, you are the saint all humble, who gained eternal fame--

We look to the justice seen in St. Joseph in a time when work often does not provide for the minimal needs of families.  The injustices are glaring when we consider the inequity that exists in our world.  St. Joseph stands for all who have struggled to make ends meet, but even more he stands for those whose work fails to conform to the most meager of standards.  Thus, St. Joseph is the true patron of the worker.  It is he to whom we must look as we consider the needs of those loved ones our Lord has entrusted to us.

The justice of St. Joseph exemplifies the trust in God that we are to strive toward.  If ever there were a situation that tested one's ability to trust, St. Joseph faced it.  He chose, rather than listening to the voices around him, to trust what God had revealed to him; that is, he chose to trust in the holy and sanctifying providence of God.  He surrendered all his human will to the will and purposes of the Almighty.

As I prepared to retire to my room for the evening I caught a glimpse of a little icon that has hung on my bedroom wall since my first child was born.  It depicts a young looking Joseph with a little blond boy holding a cross that he fashioned from his daddy's wood scraps.  Many times my wife has reminded me that it is her favorite of my "holy pictures," which I've collected over the years and hung in various places around the house.  I know that what she expresses when she tells me that it is her favorite is something deeper than words--it's a fundamental relationship, one that marriage shows us clearly.  It is a communication of the depth that God chooses to have in the human exchange between spouses.  She looks to Joseph because she looks to Joseph in me--no less than many miracles have taken place in my life, in my family, because a greater power watched over us.

I must confess, I have not always seen St. Joseph in the light I now see him.  However, being a husband, a dad, and a worker brings me a little closer to him.  Facing doubt and uncertainty also brings St. Joseph into focus in my life.  No, there's not really any fear when we trust God--thankfully we have a wonderful model who is able to "direct our way to heaven.  St. Joseph, be our guide!"

Reflection on the Commemoration of St. Patrick

Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and adversity. You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to God. God showed me how to have faith in him forever, as one who is never to be doubted. From the Confession of St. Patrick

A great lesson is available for us in the words of St. Patrick: that we might rejoice and glorify God regardless of the situation; that we might accept with faith whatever comes our way. It is a lesson of trust. This Lent trusting in God has weighed heavily on my mind. Somehow I knew at the beginning of the season that trust would be thematic for me. However, I didn’t yet realize just how deeply and personally I would be called upon to trust in God. In fact, it became so relevant to me that I took many days away from writing here at my blog just to digest everything.

The season of Lent this year has been a time of difficult decision making. After a great deal of prayer and seeking the will of God in my life I decided not to return this August to the school district where I have worked for the past four years. Many factors influenced my choice. However, rather than pointing to specifics, allow me to say only that I found myself praying frequently regarding God’s will in my life concerning where I work, and I took it as a sign that I should be decisive in the matter. Therefore, my choice arose out of prayer and trusting that sometimes God asks us to do something risky—to dare to take a chance.

I doubt that St. Patrick knew much about what lay ahead of him when he chose to take up his mission to the people of Ireland. However, clearly he embarked trusting God and a great good came forth from the choice that he made. Still, we must balance risk and chance in life’s decisions with a determination to work in such a way that our actions please God. In my last post I intimated that the willingness to work can fill those areas of our lives where there is uncertainty or insecurity. Never should we fear the decisions we make providing that we meet them with a determination to work diligently to insure that the will of God comes to pass.

Someone recently asked me if I simply took my future on faith. Of course I replied negatively—faith alone simply won’t do. Our faith must be infused thoroughly with the willingness—the will—to act decisively time after time, and with the determination to work toward that end to which our faith directs us.

In our faith we find the ability to trust God entirely. Whatever happens we offer thanks to God for what we have, for God is the source of all we have. To be successful in our undertakings we trust, regardless of what lies ahead, and we go on giving thanks to God as we work to see his will come to pass in our lives.

Meditation on the Evening Prayer

Work for your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God, for his own loving purpose, who puts both the will and the action into you. Do all that has to be done without complaining or arguing and then you will be innocent and genuine, you will be children of God. Philippians 2:12 - 15

As I read the short reading above from the Evening Prayer something occurred to me that I often fail to see. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up into strong current of the affairs of daily life and to began to feel more like a passive bystander to whom life happens than like an active partner in God's plan for us.

However, I am thankful for the moments of clarity when the word of God makes it clear to me that I am a full participant in what God wills for each of my days. In our ability to act decisively we show our faith and trust in the Lord. Never should we fear anything provided that we carry out our obligation to work diligently for the sake of God's kingdom.

Each day brings us an opportunity to express our freedom. In that freedom we choose to act and to do what is good and seek to allow our lives to express the spiritual worship that is the work of God among us. Thus we go about the day seeking to remain busy about those things that are most innocent and genuine, that is, as we go about making room for God in the seasons, days, and hours of our lives.

Never should we fear the outcome of the decisions we make provided that we are willing to work wholeheartedly and courageously to ensure that there is ample room the presence of God in whatever may come. And, come what may, we rest assured that God has given us work that it might sanctify the path that lies ahead.

Sunday Homily: The Glory of God Revealed

So, the Lord God took Abraham outside and had him look at the sky and count the stars. Imagine what the night sky must have looked like then, in the days before electric lights.

Those of you who are old enough may remember Johnny Carson’s impersonation of the astronomer Carl Sagan, in which Carson would say there are “billions and billions of stars.”

While Sagan himself never actually used the phrase, he did, in what may have been a humorous gesture, title a book Billions and Billions. There are, in fact probably close to 400 billion stars in our galaxy, which lies in a universe that may contain more than 100 billion similar galaxies. There are more stars in the heavens than there are grains of sand on this planet.

Being something of an amateur astronomer myself, the first reading today appealed to me. It spoke to me where I live, as scripture should speak to us, and it reminded me of other passages that reflect on the created beauty of the heavens. Job asks, “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?” In another place Amos says, “He who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns deep darkness to morning… the Lord is his name.”

If you go out far enough from city lights this time of year, and at a time of night when there is no moon, with sharp eyes you can make out the nebulous clouds in Orion and the multitude of stars that lie within the Pleiades. The wise heart knows that they proclaim the splendor of their creator.

While the emphasis in the passage from Genesis, which we heard this morning, is on the enormity of the number of the promised descendants of Abraham, and their comparison to the number of stars, the emphasis for the combined lectionary readings today is on the magnificence of the glory revealed in God, which the heavens declare so eloquently but, even more, that our lives can somehow hold. Specifically, we look to the work of God in Christ, and to his “exodus” accomplished in Jerusalem, that is, to his passage from this world to God—from earth to heaven. The glory that we focus on is both the glory of the cross and the glory of the risen and heavenly life.

As the journey of Lent takes us on a symbolic exodus, a wandering from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates as it were, we keep in mind that we are to focus our vision and our lives on that which awaits at Easter—on the glory that our hearts were made to hold—the sure promise and covenant of the heavenly life.

However, in order for the glory of heaven to express something real in terms of faith we must share it with others and communicate it to them. In doing so we, like Abraham, put our faith in the Lord and thus we have it credited to us as righteousness. This means that faith in God is itself the realized potential of salvation. Faith has the power to save us because it always points us to the love of God that reaches to realities beyond the limits of mortal imagination, and it inspires us to do good works and to act in charity toward one another.

As a convert, learning the discipline of Lent came slowly to me but I have grown over time to view it as one of the most special liturgical seasons of the year. During Lent, more than any other time, we have the specific opportunity to reflect on how God may want to reveal the glories of the heavenly world to us through his Son. Especially this is true in terms of God’s gift to us of Christ in the Eucharist, which reveals the connection between the created order and Christ; that is, it shows us the continuity between the things that were made and that which is eternally begotten.

God is capable of far more than the human mind can comprehend, yet God has made us able to grasp the deepest of mysteries by placing Christ in our midst.

Lent presents us with a special opportunity to consider and even apprehend the power that alone can change the face of the earth. During Lent we practice letting go of worldly things in order to remind ourselves that we are citizens of heaven, whence we await our savior. The power of God is love, and when we gaze upon that love and yield ourselves to it, and when we allow it to enter into our hearts, it does more than merely awe us and inspire us, even more than the starriest of nights, it reveals to us the presence of God and the covenant of the citizenship of heaven in our everyday lives.